The Arda VII ordeal
by Folkestorm
Summary: IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY WAR. Arda VII is besieged by orks and have for years been locked in a stalemate. But the trench warfare and patrol missions in the deathzone escalates as the horde pushes harder than ever before. Could something other than their inborn lust for war be pushing them?
1. Prologue

**Authors note:**

Hello to you all.

This is my first submission, constructive criticism is welcome, i'll note that english is my second language and so, even though I read the story through multiple times, there might be some literary hiccups, should you find some, please pointed them out and i'll rectify. Same goes if you should find a sentence that makes no sense.

On the story it self, it's (hopefully) gonna be a series following the good people of Arda in this time of turmoil.

If you have any idears you'd like to see, let me know and i'll do my best to fit it in.

Hope you enjoy the read and will leave a comment, be it praise or criticism.

 **Disclaimer.**

 **I dont own any of the rights to the Warhammer or Warhammer 40k universe.**

 **The Ardanian ordeal.**

 _Prolog._

The sound was close, just on the other side of the half wall, behinde which Maeco was crouched down.

The sound of roars and gruff shouts, bike engines sputtering and the occasionally clashing sound of a big green fist meeting a taloned face.

Maeco looked at his hands, clinging to the lasgun, they were shaking slightly. He took a deep breath and looked around on the faces of his squad mates. They were pale, just as he suspect that his was. All except their watchmaster, sergeant Strass. His face didnt show a singel emotion, it didn't show anything at all, other than two reflecting eye lenses of his gasmask embedded in a skull shaped half mask.

Maeco didn't believe that the face underneath would show any emotions either, the sergeants voice surely didn't when he spoke out, in a quite hissed tone.

 _"Grenades at the ready. Then show them the holy light of the god emperor himself!"_

Maeco let out a sigh, drew in a deep breath, held it in as the sound of fifteen grenades got unpinned.

Then as if in a dream, everything moving in slow motion, as through water.

Maeco rose with the rest of the squad, one synchronized motion.

On the other side of the crumbled wall, riddled with bullet holes, mere fifteenmeters away stood a dozen or so hunched figurs. Their long muscular arms derived from muscular shoulders that again grew into a broad back ending in short sturdy legs, the thighs thick as a mans waist.

Their heads where sitting low almost at their barreled chest, the neck growing togther with the enourmes shoulders. Clad in what looked like everything from a scrapped leather armor to scavenged parts of small vehicles. Wielding weapons of dubious quality and in all sizes and shapes.

The biggest of the greenskins were slapping a smaller one around, who were clinging to what could look like a crude map. The big one roaring and beating, the smaller yelping and covering himself.

Only one of the greenskins noticed the fifteen guardsmen who rose along the road, obscured by the veil of rain that hammered into the mud. The ork raised a taloned finger pointing at them, with a surprised look on its flat, toothy face.

 _"Release!"_

Sergeant Strass barked, and then the sound of the safety pins springing off and a unified grunt as the guardsmen hurled their grenades towards the xenos.

The big ork, sporting a high sitting blood red ponytail on a otherwise clean saved head, turned around just in time to roar at them, before the sound of fifteen exploding grenades drowned out the greenskins yells and roars of surprises and anger.

The explosions threw over ork bikes, send greenskins tumbling to the ground and covered the road in a cloud of smoke and mud. Mud that like rain poured down over the guardsmen as they shouldered their lasguns. As sergeant Strass's chainsword roared to life, they opened up.

Red beams cutting through the smoke and rain, roars of pain and anger boomed from within.

 _"Give it all, don't let up, no quarter, no mercy to the xeno filth!"_

Sergeant Strass's voice cut through the sound of angry orks and lasfire, like a powerblade through flesh.

Then, a slight tremor in the ground, accompanied by the collective roars of frenzied greenskins.

The huge silhouettes changing for the visual of bloodied orks charging from within the smoke and towards them, swing large axes and crude blades, resembling meat cleavers more than actual swords.

Seven in total led by the big one, who were bleeding massively from a gabbing wound in the head, white bone showing in the growing darkness of the afternoon.

The leaders roar attracted every single las beam, burning through his skin and crude armor several places at once, sending him back over and into the mud. A brief cheer from the guardsmen abruptly ended by the sound of the greenskins sluggas bellowing out lead. Throwing two guards men off their feet and into the mud, chunks of flesh violently ribbed from their body and blood pooling with the rain and mud.

"Fix bayonets, ready to charge in the name of holy Tera and the god emperor!"

Maeco's heart stopped beating for a moment, he knew this was the end, his first fight would be his last. Still, as if looking at himself with someone else's eye's, he saw his hands, no longer shaking, but steady from hours upon hours of training, slitting on the bayonet, squeezing of a couple more shots before feeling his boot pulling out of the mud, pacing up to a quick sprint, closing the short distance to the brutish xenos in the blink of an eye.

From somewhere the sound of sergeant Strass's bolt pistol and voice could be heard, weirdly enough cutting through the roar of the orks and the shout of the charging guardsmen.

 _"In death Salvation! CHARGE!"_

The sound of boots pounding through the mud and cracks of hip fired lasguns, abruptly change to screams pain and terro, mixing with brutish sounds of what could be ork laugther.

Maeco threw his body to the side, evading an axe blow that would have cleaved him in two from shoulder to hip. The viciously grinning ork were covered in wounds from shrapnels, his stomach torn open over the naval, a piece of his entrails hanging out, seemingly not bothering the greenskin at all, it just came around for another swing, the axe head cutting through the air inches from Maeco's face.

Maeco took a quick step back, before hurling himself forward, under the greenskins axe wielding arm.

The muzzle of his lasgun catching the flobbing entrails and the bayonet catching the exposed green flesh. As he bolted by, he heard the ripping sound of flesh getting torn up by the knife, it was followed by a wet sound as the entrails were torn out and hit the muddy ground.

The ork rolled it's eye and snarled, jumping at Maeco, swinging the migthy axe high above it's head.

The jump got cut short as it stepped in it's own entrails and tumbled forward in a pile of ripped and smashed entrails, it's roar of anger drowned as it's jaw hit the ground and got a mouthful of mud.

The small beady eyes looked up from the flat face and a mud gurgled snarl, made Maeco shake his head in disbelief, why wouldn't they just die. He kranked up the power on his las gun and burned a black hole through the orks head.

Maeco turned towards the rest of the squad, all of them caught up in the melee, no doubt the orks had the upper hand when it came to brute strength, but the guardsmen where faster and more agile. Constantly dodging and leaping to get away from the crude weapons that the greenskins so maliciously wielded. The occasionally loud boom or roar when one of the orks fired its shoota, blended in with the zapping, stinging sound of the lasguns.

Two of the orks were already on the ground, the gruesome wounds with the ripped edges and big holes blown through their bodies spoke the clear language of the sergeants bolt pistol and chainsword.

Sergeant Strass was caugth up in a intense duel with one of the orks, who wielded two axes stained with rust or maybe dried blood. Every time the sergeant tried to get a shot lined, he had to dodge for his life. And as soon as he avoided the first hit he had too parry the following.

Around the sergeant the ground was a chaotic mess of greenskins and guardsmen, even though they were roughly two men per ork, the orks made up for their lack in numbers with a brutal rage and apparent inability to die from wounds that would have killed an Astrated two times.

One of the orks had a guardsman on it's back, who repeatedly dug his bayonet into the xeno's broad shoulders. The greenskin oblivious to the fact and way to busy beating another guardsman to dead with the poor guys torn off arm.

The rest were locked in a deadly dance, where las shots and bayonet staps slowly wore down the hulking greenskins. The mud were running with blood and the rain pounded so hard on his helmet that the sound almost drowned out the sound of the fighting.

Maeco saw an ork fall to the ground, succumbing to the hail of las fire scorching the greenskin, but before giving in, the ork pulled something that looked like one of the field rations, the ones in big cans, the xeno pushed down a button. The three guardsmen made an attempted to dive into cover. But the explosion engulfed them and as they rolled around in the mudd, screaming in agony and covered in a sticky bright burning substance, the ork, who were burning as well, made a sound that could have been confused with a coarse laugh, before coughing and finally dying.

All of this was happening in a mind whirling speed, Maeco shoulder his lasgun and scorched the broad back of the dual wielding ork, who were trying to cut down the sergeant. The greenskin howled and casted a angry scowl over it's shoulder, it's beady bloodshot eyes full of rage and mouth frothing.

The shot might just have been a distraction for the ork, but it was one sergeant Strass wasn't late take advantage of.

His bolt pistol roared four times, each explosive shell tearing large chunks out of greenskins back.

And before the big body even hit the ground, the chainsword had dugged it's way into the xeno's skull.

The sound of combat slowly petered out and in exchange the screams of wounded guardsmen could be heard. Two were slumped down into the mud next to the bloody corps of an ork, who had been stapped and shot in such a degree that pulp would have been more fitting. But it had given as good as it got, the two soldiers were bleeding profoundly from uncountable cut wounds of various sizes. The team medic were trying his best to patch up one of them, the other were already as pale as snow and looked like he were out of medical cares reach.

The cracking sound of two las shots, in quick succession. Made Maeco's head snap around, he found two of his comrades standing over the body of a greenskin sprawled in the ditch, they each fired a shot through the xenos thick skull.

"19902015Maeco! Fetch the flamer and clench the corpses"

The sergeant barked, he stood over the trembling body of a guards man, the poor guy had meet the business end of one of the ork axes. The man abdomen were cut open and he was fighting a losing battle of keeping his entrails inside. A task made harder by the fact that his eyes were blinded by blood, blood streaming from a ghastly wound that showed the skull from brow to the scalp.

Maeco lifted the fuel tank onto his back and secured the chest strap. A loud boom from the sergeants bolt pistol made him twitch and when he returned to the road, the sergeant had already moved on to the next guards man. Bestowing the emperor's peace upon those deemed beyond saving.

Two more times the bolter barked. Then only the sound of the pounding rain drumming in the mud and the hissing sound of the flamer igniting, followed by the sizzling sound of the greenskin corpses getting burned to crisp, could be heard.

It was a slow and dirty job burning the corpses, they were to heavy to move, so Maeco just went from corpse to corpse, holding his breath as the filthy creatures own odor got mixed with the sensation of burning flesh and meat.

Maeco were at his fourth corpse, the one laying in its own entrails, roasting and sizzling. When he heard a deep roar and a terrified scream of horror, that drifted into a cry of pain.

With eyes wide in disbelief, Maeco saw the big brutish ork leader standing on it's feet. A unfortunate guardsman was wriggling on the ground, a grim meatcleaver were dug into the ground, through the poor guard, all the way to the handle,

The big ork were wielding a bulky shoota, a weapon resembling a bolt pistol just way more primitive and crude. It barked out and the Vox operator who stood frozen in place, got lifted up from his feet and send flying into the crumbled half wall, hitting it with a wet sound. A gabbing hole in his helmet were his face should have been, talked it's own clear language.

Maeco saw the big ork raise his shoota point it at him and pull the trigger. The sound of the click almost blew out his eardrums and for a second he felt as if gravity had stopped existing.

The ork looked at it's weapon with a surprised frown on its flat face. Then it pulled out the cleaver from the now silent guard and charged towards him.

Maeco turned the nozzle of the flamethrower towards the greenskin but the rain had put out the ignition flame, he cursed and desperately pressed the igniter, nothing.

He tried again, nothing.

The ork were mere meters away, when a figure clad in a long, brown greatcoat stepped in front of him, blocking the cleaver with his chainsword.

Sergeant Strass's knee almost gave in from the force of the blow, but he managed to keep on his feet.

With both hands on the swordgrib, his feets solid planted in the mud and mask lenses focused on the ork.

He stood as someone out of a propaganda poster.

The greenskin roared and threw a heavy punch at the sergeant, who didn't had the free hands to parry and instead was send in to the mud, flat on his back.

Maeco struggled to get out of the flamethrowers harness as the ork leader hacked away on sergeant Strass, who rolled around in the mud to the best of his abilities.

Just as the lock on the harness finally clicked and the tank hit the mud, Maeco saw the cleaver hit the sergeant, cutting deep into his side, blood instantly colouring the muddy greatcoat a deep red.

The sergeant sputtered and made a gurgling wet sound behind his mask, before his body split in two each part dropping its own way.

Maeco felt a bump at his side, Pieter the team medic were standing next to him, lasgun shouldered, hands shaking.

Maeco drew his pistol, cranked up the power and whispered a silent prayer, absence mind he heard Pieter fall in with his words, there they stood as the big ork turn to them, bloody cleaver in hand and a gruesome grin on its toothy face.

 _"Emperor Guide my hand._

 _That it may be swift_

 _That it may be true_

 _Emperor stand with me._

 _In the hour of darkness_

 _In the hour of truth._

 _Emperor be my shield._

 _That I might be your sword"_

The ork roared and jumped at them, the cleaver cutting the air betwen them, as they jumped to each their side.

Maeco rolled over his shoulder, mud cascading around him, as his back hit the mud.

He leaped onto his feet and scrambled for the seargents corpes, but a metal plated boot caught him in the side and send him flying through the air.

Pieters lasgun cracked and the migthy swing aimed at Maeco's curled up body failed it's intended target, instead it cut through his great coats sleeve, the coarse blade biting into his arm. Maeco couldn't stop himself, he screamed from the pain.

As the big ork retracted the blade with on hand, Maeco felt its other, enourmes taloned hand closing around his angle, the force of the grib making his bones creak.

Then the world swirled, swirled around and around, before he flew through the air like a rag doll.

Pieter let out a suprised squeal as Maeco landed ontop of him, sending them both into the mud in a heap of arms and legs.

 _"Foul xeno, be bathed in his light that you may burn in all Eternity!"_

Sergeant Strass's voice were barely more than a whisper, yet somehow it carried through the rain.

He had dragged his mauled torso, through the mud, up behind the ork, his entrails dragged behinde him like a fan of bloodied tails. In his hands he clutch the squads melta bomb. The ork looked at him with what could pass for a surprised look.

Then as the last ragged breath weezed out from the sergeants mask, he turned the handle.

A bright light, then a overwhelming blaze of heat.

Then nothing, all was black.


	2. Chapter 1

**_+Arda VII, fourth planet from the sun, a gardenworld in the Centaure cluster.+_**

 ** _++Agriculture and food processing is the planets primary contribution to the imperium of man++_**

 ** _+++Notes concerning Arda VII, Departmento Munitorum+++_**

 ** _"The agricultural world of Arda VII, is one of the primary contributors of provisions to the efforts at the Cadian gates, and therefor the planets security is deemed a top priority by the Departmento Munitorum. The infrastructual integrity is critical, Exterminatus denied"._**

Renard Suttung let out a deep sigh, he placed the dataslate on the thick stone railing, the rain immediately starting to pool on the screen, he didn't care. The Ardanian gear was built to withstand the rain, the constant rain. He let out another sigh, he hadn't seen a clear day since he had been deployed to this world.

It was raining everyday around the clock, not that it seemed to bother the ardanians.

He looked down into the courtyard where fifty guardsmen in dark brown greatcoats were practicing bayonet drills under the watchmasters emotionless stare, Renard narrowed his eyes at the watchmaster, who were standing like a statue in the rain, his face covered by an expressionless gasmask. But Renard couldn't read the name tag, but knew it would be nothing but a long number and a stock code, which the korpsman could rote up in a breath. It could be anyone one of the countless, faceless instructors from the Death Korps, who were grinding the young men of Arda VII into emotionless machine's, mirroring their own troops. The hundreds of thousands of deathlike soldiers who were camped around the spire city of Nuln. They never talked, never got drunk or started fights. They trained, never complaining about the rain, then they ate and sleept, then they trained again, the gruesome drills sending shivers down even the commisars spine. Then they rotated to the front, thousand never to return. The korpsmen who did return, just fell into their rutine of training, eating, sleeping and rotating to the front. The ardanians on the other hand returned pale, their faces emotionless and the banter and normal camaraderie between them all but ceased. They just walk around like dead men.

Renard returned to his office, hanging his black greatcoat just within the door, a small puddle of water quickly forming underneath.

 _"What are we looking at colonel?"_

The green light from the holomap was reflected in the emotionless eyelenses of the colonels skull faced gasmask.

 _"We've seen increased xeno activety across sector Three and all the way to sector eight mein Lord Commisar"_

The colonel consulted a dataslate. Renard couldn't help but wonder if he would ever come to understand these men of Krieg, the colonel spoke of a spike in enemy activety, a change of patteren the like which hadn't been seen since the first days of the invasion and certainly not in Renards time. And his voice showed no trace of emotion, he just stated the fact in his dry voice.

 _"The old industrial sector? there haven't been figthing there for weeks"_

Renard tapped a rune on the map control, a section of the map lit up and grew in size, the boredering zones fadding out until they disappeared.

Renard's brows furrowed as he inspected the map, there were barely any structures back above the second floor highed. The whole area had been shelled in the first days of the krieg war effort.

 _"Why would the orks push here Colonel? there aren't any major infrastructure left and the nearest stronghold is fifty kilometers to the south"_

The Krieg colonel placed his datapslate on the edge of the map. Then he produced a horsewhip from his belt, the black leather tightly braided and a richly ornemented silver skull adorned the end of the shaft

 _"Mein Lord Commisar, you are correct, the xeno's have for years seemed content with just crushing themself against our strongholds and the skirmishes in the deadzone. But we have multiple reports of xeno scouting parties in this sector"_

He used the whip to mark a trail running along one of the old industrial highways from the northen end of the sector and then incircled the center

 _"This week alone we had four incidents reported by unites patrolling that part of the sector, mein Lord Commisar"_

Renard narrowed his eys, focusing on the center of the sector, according to the map data this was the heart of the old manufactorum sector, they had produced tractors and other heavy machinery before the invasion. It had been more or less leveled to the ground along with everything else in the notorious deadzone, the over twohundred kilometers wide belt of nomansland. Almost every squaremeter of the deadzone had been bombarded by the krieg artilliry as a mean to stem the tied of greenskins, that had treatend to overrun the imperial lines in the beginning of the ordeal on Arda VII.

 _"Scouting parties? since when do ork's scout?"_

Renard asked and ran a finger along the scar that decorated the right side of his face. A gift, courtesy of a hive cultist from a habblock long sinced burned to the ground and sanctified

 _"Why weren't I informed earlier colonel?"_

 _"We wanted to make sure that there were a pattern mein Lord Commisar. At first it was assest that the incounters was a splinter group of xeno's trying out on their own. But the similarities betwen each of the incountered xeno groups and their movement, suggest beyond reasonable doubt that we are talking about actual xeno scouting parties mein Lord Commisar"_

Even under the stern eyes of Renard, eyes that could make men drop to their knees trembling with fear, the krieg colonel just stood at ease, hands and horsewhip behind his back and the green eyelenses reflecting only the light from the map.

Renard suppress the anger and annoyance swelling up inside of him. He hated that he couldn't figure out the krieg colonel.

 _"Very well colonel. I want this reported to the war counsel, and I want eyes in the old manifactorum center, If the orks are looking for something I want to know what it is"_

The kriek colonel strapped his horsewhip to his belt.

 _"I have the 109th and 110th ready to move out at your order mein Lord Commisar"_

Renard sighed, always the same, the kriegs first response to a situation was always a massive show of force. And it had worked when it came to stopping the ork and erecting the deadzone. But this situation required a more delicated touch.

 _"No, colonel, a massive troop movement could weaken us elsewere and could possible alert the enemy to the fact that we know they are up to something, if they indeed are."_

Renard tapped his lip, the whirr from the cybernetic hand whirring along in tune with the taps.

 _"We will await the war councils final decision before making any major move, but we'll send out a scouting party of our own, who's your best scoutmaster?"_

Still standing at attention the colonel dryly replied.

 _"They are all the best mein Lord Commisar"_

* * *

The courtyard was vacant, the large square curving gently around the spire, more than twelve hundred meters above the industrial sectors and the vast masses of habblocks. Once it had been a promenade, where the spireborn nobels could stroll around with their handmaids and servants in tow, high above the smog and the bustling of thousands of workers milling about in the canopy covered streets far below.

Zechariah, called Zeke amongst his fellow guardsmen, lookd up into the rain, summer was coming the winter was over, he could tast it in the rain. He sighed and smiled, the smile drawn crooked by the horrific burn scar that covered his head from scalp and down the jaw, all along the right cheek.

They had been standing at attention in the rain for about half an hour, him and his fellow sentinel pilot Naya.

Their new squad leader, scoutmaster Echo 1.1, or so the identification tag on his greatcoat read, hadn't said a word, except for "Unit, at ease". Slightly distorted by the skullfaced gasmask.

The rain got heavier, drumming faster and louder on the cobbles, drowning out the sound of the people and machines below.

 _"Troopers! Attention!"_

The scoutmaster barked, both Zeke and Naya snapped to attention, both torn from their daydreams.

 _"We are going to the deadzone, since your last watc.. sergeant gave his life in to the emperors glory, you have been assigned to me"._

Giving his life for the emperors glory were the gloryfied way of saying it, Zeke remembered how a big ork had covered the sergeants sentinel in a spray of burning fuel, the screams of horror and pain as the sergaent burned to slags along with his walker, there had been nothing heroic about it.

 _"I assume you were assigned names from birth?"_

Once more the Scoutmasters voice tore Zeke from his own thoughts. He nodded and was about to state his name and rank, when the scoutmasters voice cut him off.

 _"Those name are now forfeit, from now on your designated identification numbers will be: Echo 1.2 and Echo 1.3."_

Naya and Zeke exchanged confused glances, they had heard of the foreign ways, offent brutal way's, the korpsmen did things, but so far managede to steer clear of any personal incounters with them, this couldn't be right? Had he just taken away their names?

 _"Echo 1.2 I understand you have an adequate score in vox communication and auspex monitoring,? Make sure you sentine is tuned in and all is in order. Echo 1.3, I want your sentinel outfitted with a heavy flammer, we'll muster back here in fifteen minutes"_

Naya looked from Zeke and back to the scoutmaster.

 _"But Sir, what is our mission parameters, what exactly are we doing out there?"_

Scoutmaster Echo 1.1 didn't raise his voice, still it cut through the rain, cloth and through to the marrow, cold as a blizzard.

 _"None of your concern Echo 1.3, now move it, fourteen minutes."._

 _"Sir, with all due.."_

They got caught be suprise as the scoutmaster closed the short distance with surprisingly fast steps. Standing right in front of them, Zeke saw that Echoo 1.1 was shorter than he first had thought.

 _"Thirteen troopers"_

They both ran, Zeke couldn't remember the last time he had change tanks and nozzle in ten minutes.


End file.
